There are thousands of blogs on the Internet on many different topics. Do you wish that you could be a blogger? If so, you should know how easy it is to get started. By learning a few of the basics of using the popular blogging tool WordPress, you can start your own blog today.
Improve the look and style of the footer on your wordpress website. This is very important as it is the first thing that your viewer is going to see. Include a short bio that includes all of your details or important links that pertain to what you want to get across.
Keep your permalinks clean and understandable. That means you should look at the permalink box every time you put up a new post. Does the title in the URL make sense? Does it help from an SEO standpoint? If not, click on it and alter it until it is perfect.
When you are done with your site, check out how it looks from a visitors standpoint. Did you get across everything that you wanted? Go to your site from someone else’s computer to get their point of view and write down the changes that you will need to make to continually improve the aesthetics.
Do not let your theme get stale. The first thing you should do if you notice a decrease in traffic is check and see when you last changed your theme. As your site grows and changes, the theme should as well. Make sure that it accurately reflects your brand, and you should see a rise in traffic.
When you use different tags for the topics on your blog, keep in mind that these are strictly for searching the content on your blog. These can’t be used by search engines. If you want your pages to be searchable on Google, you have to install an SEO type plug-in such as Headspace.
Get rid of the special characters in your post URL’s. They make it difficult for search engine spiders to “crawl” around your pages. Use short URLs that don’t baffle and confuse your readers.
Make use of a landing page. Instead of coming directly to current posts, users will pass through this landing page first. You can use this for a variety of reasons, whether for promoting a product or promoting yourself. Many themes feature a landing page; however, there are also paid options.
Have an easy to find library. Time is money and you don’t need to check tons of folders to find one thing. It is easier to find things in your WordPress theme when everything is in one integrated folder. This makes searching through your Media Library much easier since it only involves inputting a keyword for what you’re looking for.
Want to change authors on a post? Just edit the post and click on “Screen Options”. Next, choose Author and then choose whomever you want to become the author of the post. Next, click “update” or “publish” to finish the change and have it go live on your website and you’re done.
Include your SEO-based keywords in the titles of your posts. In fact, make them the first few words of the title. For example, if your key phrases is “best pizza in Toronto”, you could create a title such as “For the Best Pizza in Toronto, Only Spring Water Will Do!”
Most visitors to your WordPress site will have some type of social media account, whether it is Facebook or Twitter. If they see something and want to share it on their accounts, you want to make that process as easy as possible. Therefore, download a plugin that allows for social sharing.
If you are new to WordPress, explore the dashboard of your WordPress installation asap. It may feel daunting the first time you see that dashboard, but with just a little time you’ll get it down. Don’t be afraid to type in a few test posts and pages to see how things work.
Don’t manually approve every comment. Instead, Akismet can do this for you. You have the ability to receive a message when a comment is left, but it is wiser to uncheck the manual approval options. This will end up saving you quite a lot of time.
You can easily get rid of external text formatting in WordPress. You may need to copy text from Word. Many times, it inserts characters that don’t display properly, even with “Paste from Word” option. Select the “Show/Hide Kitchen Sink” option to show another row of buttons. Highlight the problematic text. Click on a button called “Remove Formatting” to fix it.
You have seen how easy it is to get started using WordPress. This powerful software makes blogging a snap. Of course, there is always more to learn about getting the most out of WordPress, so don’t stop here. Keep looking for new tips and tricks to make your blog even better.